- Slash and burn approach to corporate travel is hurting more than helping most companies NBTA INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION EXPOSITION, SAN DIEGO, Aug. 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- BMO Spend Payment Solutions, a division of BMO Financial Group (NYSE, TSX: BMO), today announced a strategic partnership with Tri-Pen TravelMaster Technologies (TravelMaster(TM)). The agreement is the first of several partnerships that BMO will announce over the next several weeks pertaining to the BMO Business Travel Alliance, a consortium of world-class vendors committed to helping customers eliminate inefficiency, improve business practices and controls and drive better terms and prices with preferred vendors. The partnership with TravelMaster addresses a compelling need in business today: how to keep teams on the road - meeting with customers, prospects and partners - and at the same time, keep costs at a minimum. Combining BMO's corporate card and spend management solutions for managing the entire procure-to-pay travel lifecycle and TravelMaster's decision support tools delivers an innovative dashboard that consolidates global T E data for fast, accurate analysis and complete visibility and control over corporate travel expenditures. "Organizations are quickly realizing that slashing travel budgets has a downside, especially as we fight our way out of the recession," said Terry Wellesley, Managing Director, BMO Spend Payment Solutions. "We believe there's a way to get people back out there doing business, without exponential cost increases. That's the vision behind our partnership with TravelMaster: What you can see, you can control." BMO supplements standard travel addendum data with its own proprietary card data to create purchase detail specific to the unique needs of clients. When added to booking data and brought into the TravelMaster dashboard, travel managers, purchasing and financial executives can quickly and easily see and analyze a wide range of information on T E expenditures. Reports are intuitive and include a high-level view, as well as drill-down capabilities. The dashboard provides answers to critical questions: - What is the variance of booked versus actual expenditures? - Was the booking within corporate policy? - What potential savings did we leave on the table? - What is our transaction pattern with our top vendors? - What are the transaction patterns of individual travelers? In many cases, organizations can leverage the data to make immediate and effective changes in travel policy based on trends and actual usage before the charge hits the corporate card. "T E purchasing is such a complex area to manage. By adding TravelMaster to BMO MasterCard programs, clients benefit from a cohesive application with all the tools and analytics everyone in the company needs. There's immense potential for savings and leverage by applying the right spend management principles to T E," said Victoria Wofford, President of Nevada-based Tri-Pen TravelMaster Technologies. "We're very pleased to be working with BMO Spend Payment Solutions to help companies capitalize on those opportunities to make T E dollars work harder." "The demand for T E spend visibility and control continues to increase," said Mr. Wellesley. "BMO remains at the forefront in providing its clients with the products and technologies that enable them to deliver ongoing efficiencies to their managed business travel programs." About BMO Spend Payment Solutions A division of BMO Financial Group, BMO Spend Payment Solutions is the seventh largest commercial card provider and a leading provider of spend management solutions in North America. BMO products are widely used by corporations and government sector organizations to manage, control and gain better visibility into their commercial spending. Through Harris N.A., a Midwest-based and wholly owned subsidiary of BMO Financial Group, BMO Spend Payment Solutions offers a comprehensive range of financial products and services to U.S. public and private sector organizations. BMO Financial Group is one of the largest providers of diversified financial services in North America with average assets in excess of $430 billion. About Tri-Pen TravelMaster Technologies Tri-Pen TravelMaster Technologies LLC, is a technology development company specializing in Total Travel Cost Management(R) technology applications. Our flagship product TravelMaster(TM) is the first-ever Interactive Travel Management System(TM) which provides comprehensive integration of real-time corporate card and travel data in a single application and a complete suite of tools providing Actionable Intelligence(R) for corporate travel management. More information on TravelMaster(TM) and Tri-Pen TravelMaster Technologies LLC can be found at http://www.travelmaster.com/ or e-mail DATASOURCE: BMO Financial Group CONTACT: For news media inquiries: BMO Financial Group: Ralph Marranca, Toronto, (416) 867-3996, ; Ronald Monet, Montreal, (514) 877-1873, ; Internet: http://www.bmospendandpayment.com/index.html; Corporate Ink: Nina Gill, (617) 969-9192,

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